Full Screen Dithering - PCSX-Rearmed

[pjft]

@xaGe I wasn't aware of that. You are correct that some emulators have it as an option.

Let me get back to this thread later, then.

EDIT: had no luck disabling dithering on the current graphics driver. Read some posts around enabling video smoothing, and that that could alleviate it, though.

[drake999]

Sorry guys, been off the forum for a while. Life right? I haven't switched from the default emulator and indeed I did not even realize there was multiple PSX emulators included in RetroPie. I tend to stick to the default configuration in RetroPie, except for overclocking and other performance tweaks. So yeah I'm hoping to get rid of that ugly dithering effect on the screen if possible. It doesn't kill PSX emulation for me on RetroPie, but it is mildly annoying. Basically I'm just looking to know if it was possible and perhaps a light explanation, otherwise I would have made a help and support thread instead. I'm running a Pi3 overclocked to 1350 MHz and RetroPie 3.6 (old I know, not interested in a new build right now, no time for that).

[edmaul69]

@drake999 can you tell me a game that has it? I use video smoothing and use the enhanced resolution in core options on lr-pcsx-rearmed. I havent notice dithering. I would like to test it to see if i can see it.

Edit: found it in silent hill

[edmaul69]

@drake999 so using lr-pcsx-rearmed i did some screenshot differences.

no enhancements

video smooth only

enhanced resolution only

both video smooth and enhanced resolution

as you can see having both video smooth and enhanced resolution on, it looks far better than any other way. it actually looks worse here with my phone all the way up on my screen than it looks like in real life

[pjft]

@edmaul69 @drake999

Well, you have picked one of the worst games for that, as Silent Hill is traditionally a game that deliberately used dithering extensively :)

When I played with the code, I managed to remove all the dithering effects added by the emulator (so, not the ones from the actual games), but I failed to make it an option as the code was kind of opaque to me. :( Meaning: I managed to build a version of lr-pcsx-rearmed that NEVER added dithering, but couldn't control it via an option, so that was kind of where I gave up on it, as it honestly didn't bother me that much.

A few more notes: this seems to be specific to the Neon GPU rendering driver, as the other drivers in the emulator have options to remove dithering. Alas, on the Pi, Neon is the driver we want to use for performance reasons, and it does a fantastic job at it.

If anyone would be knowledgeable enough to take a look at that code, I'm happy to share my findings and lead them in the right direction, or maybe at a later stage I can look at it again, but right now it's not a big priority for me - especially as I don't mind the forced added dithering, since together with scanlines it does make it look like running it on a CRT.

[pjft]

A few examples, from Colin McRae as I picked this back up:

Dithered image (normal emulator), no smoothing or any effects:

Non-dithered image (my changes to the emulator), no smoothing or any effects:

Hope this makes it slightly clear what the difference is, in particular on the zoomed in images. This is not dithering that the game uses for effects, but dithering deliberately introduced by the emulator.

[pjft]

Solved it. Thanks for pinging this thread - only needed a little nudge, as truth be told not that many people were really asking for it and I actually didn't mind the dithering.

Submitted PR to the master lr-pcsx-rearmed.

Will let you know if/when it gets approved.

[pjft]

...aaaand it's done. If you update from source, you should have an option for it.

Best.

[edmaul69]

@pjft awesome. I will do it.

[pjft]

@edmaul69 great, please do and let me know how it goes!

This should remove all dithering effects that the emulator explicitly added - but obviously keeping any that the games had originally.